I have been thinking a lot recently about the Universe and the place we occupy in it. And I asked myself the question: is that really all so pointless? Do we really evolve, live, die and that's it? Isn't maybe possible that humanity occupies a special place in the great scheme of things?
Possible, yes. But why would you assume it and why would it matter? What reason do you have to think that life is any more special, being as it is just a particular arrangement of atoms, than the dust that covers the moon? Why is the physical phenomenon of life any more worth deserving of "a special place in the great scheme of things" than the rings of Saturn are? Why it reasonable to assume the Universe exists for us, rather than for the stars, or for photons, or merely for the vacuum of space? I get that the existence of life is an extremely interesting, somewhat mysterious and difficult to grasp phenomenon, but "in the great scheme of things" life is nothing more than a particular arrangement of atoms - just like every other thing in the known Universe is. I don't see that it requires a "special place", and I actually find the suggestion of it to be supremely arrogant. Why should this incomprehensibly large, almost entirely lifeless, wondrous, colourful and infinitely fascinating structure called the Universe exist for the sake of some biological phenomenon located in a tiny planet in the middle of a gigantic vacuum? It simple makes no sense.
If we collect all the arguments that hint at the possibility of God, we cannot really see one that sets the issue. But all of them could give us some cumulative pieces of evidence all pointing to a possible trascendent reality. This is also the process we use to provide evidence in science.
Not quite. Science collects facts and uses them to build a theory, but those facts have to be solid. You cannot build a theory on unproven conjecture. It doesn't matter if there is one bad argument or a million bad arguments - an unsupported claim remains unsupported until there are hard facts for it. The vast number of arguments for the existence of God are a result of simple cognitive biases - the Universe being interpreted by a fallible human mind that projects it's own ability to recognize patterns into the makeup of the Universe. Of course there's going to be a large number of them, because we are all born with that bias. But that doesn't suddenly make the assertion true, and it doesn't make the proliferation of an idea evidence for the truth of the idea either.
For instance, the amazing effectivity of mathematics to describe the Universe is something I could not really explain as a naturalist. How is that possible that mathematics applies so perfectly to the fabric of reality if there is not a mind behind all this?
Because
there is a mind behind mathematics. We invented maths as a way to observe and understand aspects of the Universe, so its hardly surprising that maths tends to be quite good for... Observing and understanding aspects of the Universe. We created mathematics as a tool to do just that.
I also considered the fine tuning argument as one of the strongest ones in support of a non natural origin of conscious beings. The chances of life are so negligible that it seems really a stretch to believe that consciousness can arise out of unconscious processes. We should expect a Universe just filled with dead things and not one with life. Especially not one with introspective life, or life that goes beyond the immediate survival instincts: i.e life that can give the Universe itself a meaning.
This is what I call "the puddle argument". One day, it rains on the streets of a city and a puddle forms in a small groove in the pavement. When the rain stops, suddenly the puddle somehow gains sentience. It looks at its situation and declares "My word! This groove in the pavement perfectly holds the exact quantity of water I am! Look at how perfectly it fits - someone must have designed this particular groove in the pavement with the express intent of bringing me into existence!"
The point is, this argument fails when you look at it from the other perspective. It's essentially nothing more than a "If things were different, then things would be different" argument. What's more, it makes completely unfounded assumptions, such as asserting that there is only one specific set of circumstances in which life could possibly arise, when all you can really say with any certainty is "there is a particular situation in which
the kind of life that exists on earth COULD arise". There is no reason whatsoever to assume that life couldn't arise under entirely different circumstances, or that life is unique to the kinds of life we see on our immediate planet. When you stop seeing things from the ground up, like the puddle does, and see things from a more Universal perspective, you realise that the fine tuning argument is barely an argument at all - just a collection of spurious, baseless assumptions.
But the key moment was this morning. And it was not a mere rational analysis. I just had a look out of my window. When I saw the mountains, the lake, the majesty and the beauty surrounding me, I experienced a moment in which I felt one with everything. All the long term pointlessness of my naturalistic view vanished. That was stunning and something I never felt before. I don't know if that can be considered a mystic experience, but it felt like one.
Or, maybe you just have a nice view out of your window that your found aesthetically pleasing?